The present invention relates to a disc support plate, such as a tray, for holding a disc. The present invention also relates to a disc changer mechanism and a disc recording and/or reproducing device including such disc support plate.
One of the disc recording and/or reproducing devices mounted on a vehicle for recording and/or reproducing sound and/or image is a disc player. The disc player is constructed such that a plurality of disc-like recording mediums such as a compact disc (CD) is stored in a magazine, and the whole of the discs stored in the magazine is changed at a time. This brings the disc player to increase the size, so that the main body is received in a trunk, while only a portion necessary for operation is arranged in a cabin. However, changing discs is not possible during driving of the vehicle, and requires stop thereof to open the trunk, forming a bothersome affair.
On this account, vehicle-mounted disc players to be received in cabins are developed in recent years. Such vehicle-mounted disc player, which is required to enable storage of a plurality of discs, is received in a predetermined space in a dashboard in the cabin. Accordingly, there remains an essential challenge of a reduction in size of the vehicle-mounted disc players.
Referring to FIG. 42, for example, the vehicle-mounted disc player includes a roughly rectangular-prism casing 201 of a given dimension called 1 DIN size or the like, in which, for instance, six trays 203 for individually holding six discs 202 thereon are placed one upon another to constitute a disc compartment 204. The six discs 202 are individually loaded through a disc loading opening 205 formed in the casing 201 to be held on the respective trays 203.
The six trays 203 are vertically movably placed one upon another through a guide support 206. Upon reproduction, a selected tray 203 holding a selected disc 202 and all other trays 203 positioned thereabove are moved upward to form a space under the selected tray 203, into which a turntable for holding and turning the disc 202 and an optical pickup are inserted to reproduce the disc 202.
In order to make proof the trays 203 against scratches occurring upon loading of the discs 202, etc., each tray 203 is formed out of a resin molding-in its entirety, or includes a resin layer placed by coating the whole surface of a metal substrate or placed on part of the metal substrate, i.e. a portion thereof contacting the disc 202, in an outsert or adhesive way.
However, the above conventional trays and disc player presented the following problems:
1) The resin-molding tray is of inferior mechanical strength compared with the metal tray. In order to obtain sufficient strength, the thickness should be increased, resulting in increased height of the whole disc player;
2) The tray having a resin layer placed by coating the whole surface of a metal substrate is apt to suffer mixing of foreign matters during full coating, which may cause damage to a disc. Moreover, due to small thickness of the resin layer resulting from coating, the treatment of an end face of the substrate is required to avoid damage to a disc by the end face of the substrate;
3) The tray having a resin layer placed on part of the metal substrate in an outsert way is difficult to obtain small thickness, e.g. 0.1-0.2 mm, of the resin layer due to nature of outsert forming. Moreover, some contrivance should be taken for the substrate to prevent the resin layer from peeling off from the substrate, increasing manufacturing cost; and
4) The tray having a resin layer placed adhesively on part of the metal substrate provides poor workability due to nature of adhesion of the resin layer, and is apt to produce positional displacement during adhesion. Moreover, some adhesive agents may cause peeling of the resin layer, dissolution of the adhesive agent, etc. at a high temperature.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a disc support plate that is free of the above problems and contributes to an improvement in device quality and workability with reduced manufacturing cost. Another object of the present invention is to provide a disc changer mechanism and a disc recording and/or reproducing device including such disc support plate.
The present invention generally provides a disc support plate, comprising:
a substrate; and
a resin portion placed on said substrate by printing.
One aspect of the present invention is to provide a device for recording and/or reproducing a disc, comprising:
a casing defining an external shape of the device;
a disc support plate disposed in said casing, said disc support plate comprising a substrate and a resin portion placed on said substrate by printing;
a disc compartment arranged in said casing to receive the disc on said disc support plate;
means for loading and unloading the disc from said disc compartment;
means arranged in said casing for reproducing the disc in said disc compartment; and
means for operating at least one of said disc compartment and said reproducing means.
Another aspect of the present invention is to provide a changer mechanism for discs, comprising:
a plurality of disc support plates, each comprising a substrate and a resin portion placed on said substrate by printing;
a disc compartment provided with said plurality of disc support plates, said disc compartment receiving the discs on said plurality of disc support plates;
means for loading and unloading the discs from said disc compartment; and
means for selecting one of the discs received in said disc compartment.